DNA Adventures- What a Week!

Is it "Time to Spit or Get Off the Pot" for you too?  This is one of the chapter headings in the book Swabbed and Found by Frank Billingsley, Chief Meterologist for KPRC Channel 2 in Houston.  We had a huge turnout for Frank's presentation to the Bay Area Genealogical Society last Saturday.  We got to meet Frank in person and hear his tale of "An Adopted Man's DNA Journey to Discover His Family Tree.

Frank explained how he wanted to use the double helix and the family tree as a metaphorical image of his process of discovery.  He showed his original hand drawn concept image in his slide show.  The cover art shows that the double helix is a ladder that enables you to climb your family tree.

I have been climbing the DNA ladder to my family tree too.  My Italian DNA matches have been especially intriguing.  Italian-Americans are becoming increasingly involved with DNA testing because of the high degree of difficulty in conducting genealogical research in Italian records. And it is not just Italian-Americans that are fueling the DNA rage. Frank Billingsley cited the fact that 1.5 million DNA kits were sold by Ancestry.com in advance of Christmas this year.  

Here is one of my favorite quotes from a December Wired magazine article about this DNA buying frenzy:

Between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, leading personal genomics company AncestryDNA sold about 1.5 million testing kits designed to provide insights into your ethnicity and familial connections. That’s like 2,000 gallons of saliva—enough to fill a modest above-ground swimming pool with the genetic history of every person in the city of Philadelphia.

I was part of that DNA gift giving as I purchased several kits to distribute to key members on our family tree.  I had to contact Ancestry.com this week because one of my relatives was having trouble producing saliva to fill the tube.  They offered the following tips on how to facilitate the process of obtaining the saliva sample:

1. Find a food that is appealing or tempting and have the person look at it or smell it while attempting to salivate; 
2. The appearance or smell of a lemon often works for others who have had this problem
3. Place a small amount of white sugar on the tongue. 

DNA testing is only valuable when it is combined with conventional genealogical research.  You cannot fully evaluate the meaning of a DNA match without a family tree to compare to your own. I have been busy contacting my Italian DNA matches. I have been copying their information into my tree so I can figure out our connection.  I am especially interested in other family trees which appear to have precise birth dates for their Italian ancestors.  This is indicative of someone that has a useful source of information.  For example, I found a family tree which contained useful information on the Roccaforte family that was posted by a woman from Florida.  Here was her response when I contacted her:

Subject: Roccaforte Family
From: Louise 
Jan 20, 2018

Hello Nick,

I was surprised to receive your message. Yours is the first I've received through Ancestry.
My grandfather (my mother's father) was Francesco DiGiorgio and his mother, my great, great grandmother, was Salvatora Roccaforte who married Angelo DiGiorgio. Together they had 9 children.
It looks like Salvatora Roccaforte's father was Rosario Roccaforte and his wife is Alfia Grasso. So that would be my 3rd Great Grandparents and we may be related if this is your family. How are you related to Rosario & Alfia?
In my notes I show that Rosario & Alfia had 4 children. Salvatora female, Cirino male, Vincenza female and Giuseppa female.
I have more information with some birth dates and marriages. Its been a long time since I worked on my Ancestry, so I'm a bit rusty. One of my first cousins paid someone to work on the DiGiorgio lineage so I have a booklet that includes the information I wrote above. If you feel that this would be helpful, I could either make hard copies or scan and send to you.
You are welcome to respond to me directly at my personal email. Take care.

Louise

She emailed me copies of the research that was done and I was able to find birth, marriage and death records which substantiated what she told me.  I was also able to reveal the names of the parents of her ancestor and get one generation closer to discovering our common ancestors. But the thing that really struck me about her response was that I was the first person to contact her on Ancestry.

My correspondence with Louise has been very rewarding.  She shared her experience of growing up in Omaha and gave me details of her trip to Lentini and Carlentini a few years back.  I was able to use her information to create a virtual Roccaforte family reunion.  So the bottom line is make those contacts through Ancestry.com.  There is always more to the story and it will only be revealed if you make the contact.

Dad Sat in Reagan's Chair!

Dad's birthday celebration 2014

With Father's Day coming it is a good time to reflect on our paternal lines in our genealogical research.  It is also a good time to visit Dad and get some of his stories down on paper. We can also review our paternal DNA matches.  My most recent visit to my dad uncovered a story that I never recall hearing before about dad visiting Ronald Reagan's office with an old girl friend.

Sometimes other friends and family members are in a better position to ask the questions and make note of the significant answers. I have interviewed my Dad numerous times at length over the last three decades.  I have my wife, Robin, to thank for eliciting this wonderful story about Dad sitting in Ronald Reagan's chair.  Dad and Robin were talking about our daughter in Los Angeles.  That made dad remember the time that he was in Los Angeles with an old girl friend that worked for Ronald Reagan in his Los Angeles office. His friend, Barbara Smale, took Dad on a tour of her workplace and took him into Mr. Reagan's office and encouraged him to sit in the chair of a former governor and future president.  That moment was indelibly etched in Dad's brain despite his current short term memory issues.

While reviewing the new Shared DNA Matches tool at Ancestry.com for my dad and myself, I noticed that my dad's first cousin, Sam Cimino, has taken a DNA test. Even better, Sam and I have some shared DNA matches as shown in the image below.

Shared DNA Matches between myself and dad's cousin, Sam Cimino.

I fired off a message to both men on the match list to see if they were aware of any Sicilian ancestry. One of the gentlemen responded immediately to say that he was not aware of any ancestors in Sicily. As far as he knew his ancestry was in Campobasso and the other side of his family came from the Naples area.  So I can add this one to the long list of mysteries that I need to solve.  Father's Day is a great time to take advantage of the special sale prices being offered at all of the major DNA services.

It was both ironic and serendipitous that while I was with my Dad, I read his morning newspaper and found an opinion column by Leonard Pitts Jr entitled Family Roots Run Deeper Than We Think. Mr. Pitts spoke volumes to me with the following words:

I wrote about Aunt Millie and her decline from dementia three years ago in this space. As these words are written, I’m preparing to go to Chicago to bury her. And thinking about what it means when a generation dies.

I have no more blood aunts and uncles. Not on either side. My sisters and brother and cousins and I, we are it. We are the "grownups" now. We are the family.

It is a sobering realization familiar to many of us of a certain age. Firsthand memory of the Depression, the war, the Holocaust, is dwindling at a sobering pace, disappearing one heart attack, cancer diagnosis and stroke at a time. But those of us who are of a certain age and also African American are losing those things, and other things specific to us.

We are losing firsthand memory of you can’t walk here, and you can’t eat there, of you can’t try that on and you can’t look that man in the eye. We are losing our exodus, how it felt to flee Greenville, Jacksonville, or Shreveport on the first bus or train heading north or west, toting suitcases tied with rope and cold chicken in grease-stained paper bags.

You can read the full column here: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article154174689.html

While you are at it please take a look at Mr. Pitts Recommended Reading list:  http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article141507489.html

We are losing a unique perspective on history as each generation passes.  Make sure that you spend some time listening to the previous generation and recording their oral histories.  Then write and reflect on what those memories mean to you.